No other works of Lawrence are really like The Rainbow. It can be compared to its very different predecessor, Sons and Lovers, not just for its intense exploration of love relationships between men and women, but also the characteristic vividness of natural settings and domestic scenes. An obvious point of departure is The Rainbow's emphasis, especially toward the end, on the woman's viewpoint.

Women in Love can be considered a sort of sequel to The Rainbow in that the characters Ursula and Gudrun have begun their lives in the earlier novel, and the later book does share the intense exploration of love between men and women taken up in the earlier novel. But Women in Love goes far beyond The Rainbow because of the intensity and depth of its exploration of the love relationship, often intermingled with hate, and, as hinted at in the earlier book...